Books: Oh, to Be in England

IN PURSUIT OF THE ENGLISH (240 pp.) Doris LessingSimon &
Schuster ($3.75).

This book is low comedy as well as reporting of a very high order. Like
most true comedy, it is also edged with sadness, but every page bears
the mark of truth and is as unfailingly readable as first-rate fiction.
Author Doris Lessing was born in
Persia of British parents, grew up in Southern Rhodesia; in 1949, when
she was 30, with a two-year-old son and a near-empty purse, she set out
to discover the land of her fathers. Already a very...